Sweaty Palms & Zombie Mode

Maya's hands were legit shaking. She stared at her **palm**—the lifeline looked shorter than usual, which according to the YouTube tarot reader she'd binged until 3 AM meant chaos was coming. Speaking of chaos, she was currently running on **zombie** mode, surviving on sheer panic and an unhealthy amount of caffeine.

The **orange** Gatorade in her other hand wasn't helping. She'd grabbed it thinking maybe the electrolytes would calm her down, but now she was just vibrating with anxiety and artificial fruit flavor. Great combo.

"You coming, Maya?" Jake called from the **padel** court. His hair was doing that thing where it fell perfectly across his forehead, and how was that even legal? Meanwhile, Maya had spent twenty minutes trying to look effortless and ended up looking like she'd been attacked by her own hairbrush.

"Yeah! Just—hydration break!" Maya yelled back, internally cringing at how loud her voice came out.

This was it. Her moment. Jake had invited her to play padel with his friend group, which definitely meant something, right? Unless it meant nothing. Unless she was reading into everything because she was desperate and sad and now she was spiraling again—

"Earth to Maya," said Priya, Jake's cousin, appearing beside her with an eyebrow raise. "You good? You look like you're about to pass out or perform an exorcism."

"I'm fine," Maya lied, her voice cracking. "Just thinking about how I've never played **padel** before and I'm going to embarrass myself and then I'll have to move to another country and change my name."

Priya laughed. "Dude, Jake's terrible at this. He missed the ball three times last week. Hit himself in the shin with his own racket. It was legendary."

Maya's shoulders dropped three inches. "Seriously?"

"Scout's honor." Priya grinned. "Also, I saw him looking at you like five times since we got here. Just so you know."

Maya's heart did something concerning. "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh." Priya nudged her shoulder. "Now come on. I'm partnering with you, and we're absolutely crushing them."

As they walked to the court, Maya glanced at her palm one more time. Maybe the tarot reader was wrong about the chaos. Or maybe, just maybe, chaos was exactly what she needed.